Time to fix our schools
3 February 2021
I asked a Soweto mother how she managed the home schooling of her children, aged 16 and 10. She said they had no home schooling because they had no school textbooks. Their schools have no programme and no requirements about home schooling. Her children sleep late in the morning, eat and then watch TV all day until it is time to eat again, watch more TV and then go to bed.
She said Soweto is full of children without masks running wild in the streets, not observing social distancing and in her words, "smoking and getting pregnant." That may be an exaggeration, but there are certainly many children who get up to mischief when they are not at school.
Talking to the parents of a boy and girl who attend well known private schools, opening on Monday, their home schooling experience is quite different. They have stringent requirements and comprehensive programmes; parents have to spend the whole morning until one o'clock supervising the children. The burden of balancing home schooling and work has become incredibly onerous but their children are benefiting.
State schools are, of course, closed until 15 February. This means another two weeks of idleness for children who are not fortunate enough to be home schooled. Why is it that many state schools seem unwilling or unable to provide for home schooling?
Taken together with last year's interrupted schooling, with only 58% of schools reporting that they completed last year’s limited curriculum, one must ask whether children from many state schools will ever catch up. The sad truth is probably that they will lag behind forever; there does not seem to be the will or the drive to make catch-up programmes available. A 30% pass mark, little or no post matriculation education and a jobless future lies ahead for too many of our children.
An authoritative survey found that the poorer parents were, the more they favoured the school closure. The better-off parents were much more in favour of the schools remaining open. It is not that middle class parents care less about their children’s safety, of course not, but they are aware of the dangers and the disadvantages of losing months of education for a second year. They know that the Covid-19 danger is minuscule for children and especially so when sanitising, social distancing and the wearing of masks is enforced.
TV viewers saw the spectacle of an ANCYL member, accompanied by a TV camera, shouting and verbally abusing an unfortunate school principal. The “youth” harangued him and private schools generally and accused them of genocide for opening. He threatened that the ANCYL would picket schools and force them to close.
This ignoramus does not know what genocide is, does not understand that private schools are private and may decide for themselves when to open and close and that his tactics, aping the EFF, would win few sympathisers for the ANCYL. The ANCYL now thinks private schools enjoy an unfair advantage, with their pupils having the privilege of open schools. The ANCYL should ask themselves why they are not campaigning for all schools to open urgently if being open is an advantage.
Shockingly, only 37% of state schools say they are ready to reopen on 15 February. This was disclosed by the National School Readiness Survey conducted by 5 teacher unions. Despite this, we cannot afford more weeks and months of closed schools.
There is something rotten in SA’s education system. The solution is not to destroy or diminish private schools; it is to improve state schooling to give our children their birth right. There can be no more important national imperative than fixing education.
Douglas Gibson is a former opposition chief whip and former ambassador to Thailand. His website is douglasgibsonsouthafrica.com
